MARC Lacomare, Alain Rioua and Aritz Aranburu score an endless diamond tipped left on Namibia's Skeleton Coast.
Somewhere in Namibia sits this flawless left, it's not really a secret, more just a mission to surf. Why don't you want to head here? It's located in the Namib Desert, an area estimated to have been arid for 55 million years, making it the oldest dust bowl on the world. The shark fishing here is outstanding, people head here from the far corners to hook 400lb bronze whalers from the shore, reputedly there's nowhere like it.
Still fancy it? Of course you do, snaffle one of those endless drainers and take my leg, it's a fair exchange.
word has it it's not an easy wave to ride, and unpredictable as hell. Is SB actually at the seal colony? Cause there's a left there that looked promising...with a stink like you have never in your life!
You got to love this day in age, blokes from all over the world able to come together and comment on a video shot from the far corners of the earth. Bless the world.
all you people saying they shouldn't kill seals etc blah blah... I reccommend you visit your local slaughterhouse and see where your bacon sarnies and burgers come from. arguably far worse then what the seals go through
Nice video, the big 360 was amazing.
One thing.. for me - the dubstep really doesn't work with surfing. It works for snowboarding or like rally/motocross or something.. mechanical sounds just don't work with surf. Like the track tho, it just doesn't sit right. That's not to say it always needs to be 'guitar' music.. there are other variants of downtempo electronic music that would work better. :)
ugh, music rant. the surfing rocks!
Interesting point. I thought the wave and the music match up quite well. They both have an 'other world' quality to them. Obviously the waves much better though if you're going to compare!
i'm not sure why they didn't name the spot. surfer's journal ran a feature article on this spot a couple months ago.
for anyone that believes they have the monetary and testicular fortitude to surf this isolated spot, the name of this spot rhymes with shmeleton shmay.
Yes young Namibian seals are killed just for fur, clubbed to death every morning in Cape Cross nature reserve. And it isn't an 'indigenous hunt' - the hunting concession is owned by a wealthy Turkish fur trader who operates out of warehouses in Sydney and Istanbul. The Namibian authorities enjoy the commercial revenues from the hunt, and as with other commercial marine mammal hunts around the world (Japanese whaling program for example), they like to blame the Cape Fur seals for 'eating all the fish'. Marine biologists who try to show that the the destructive deep-sea trawler fleets based out of Walvis Bay may have something to do with marine ecosystem destruction however, are thrown out of the country. Dissent is not tolerated. Beautiful country though, and one that will be even better as soon as they stop this barbaric slaughter. Spread the word.
maybe you should get your facts straight buddy.. those seals were put there by South Africa for cultivating in the early 1900's, THAT IS NOT THEIR NATURAL HABITAT!!! and despite how many are culled each year their nr's still grow exponentially, yes the method used is a little bit severe but there is unfortunately no other method that is economical nor environmentally safe. SO DEAL WITH IT!!!
it wont change my mind, im from namibia and i know the situation with the seals. the seals at cape cross were put there for cultivating for fur, and due to miss management of their nr's their population grew exponentially, for example, the new colony at pelican point in Wvb, 5 years ago there was not a single colony there, now there is over 50 000 as per last survey done there end of last year.
Ouch, did this posting touch a raw nerve by revealing the Namibian government's dirty little secret? Sorry to hear you think it is ok to batter the brains out of 80,000 baby seals each year to make into fur coats. Seems strange that a fellow surfer would think that this is ok, I tend to find that surfers are compassionate folk who care to some degree about the ocean habitats and the world around them. Oh and by the way, your blistering caps lock-infused account of fictional seal habitat history that you wrote for us above, is...plain wrong. Where do you get your info from? I think you need to read up on this a bit more amigo, and maybe not just the Namibian Ministry of Fisheries propaganda press releases next time..Ignorance is bliss eh?! Enjoy the waves.
i dont care what the namibian ministry of fisheries do, i know this info cos if you actually know the history behind cape cross you would know the whole story and what industry went down in the place, but ofcourse you know all this info because you all the way from portugal, im sorry that someone who lives 12000km knows better than someone whose lived here for the last 28 years by reading websites and being a keyboard hero.
well dolphins are the only other animals apart from humans that hav sex for fun.. so they pull out.. hahaha.. we wont have that issue of their population.. but no seriously, if there is a valid enough reason behind the culling of dolphins, i'll try to understand and let them continue with their culling..
Bottom line is if we need to "cull" anything it should be us arrogant earthling humans. The seals eat what we eat....fish.....we have caused the fishing industry to collapse in Namibia through overfishing in the 1970s under the South African Administration. We cannot blame the South Africans for our lack of fish..................so who can we blame....ummmm....the seals! Agreed culling seals is not cool....methods are barbaric.....seals are cool......surf with us do not bother us.....but we have a constitution that allows for sustainable use of resources........elsewhere on the planet these resources have been historically plundered. Cool Wave! Good show!
Hello my friend, no actually I got my information from the ground in Namibia, as well as from a variety of leading marine biologists who have been thrown out of Namibia for daring to suggest that killing all these animals might just be a bad thing... (crazy idea I know). Oh and by the way, this idea of being thousands of miles from the action...Have you ever seen the hunt with your own eyes? Because I'm sure I have been closer to the carnage that takes place on Cape cross than you would ever want to get.. But on a positive note I do love the idea of being a keyboard hero... maybe I should change my username to that for the future! Happy surfing x
Umphufu, because it's (maybe) not their natural habitat and because there's too many of them it's okay for the massacre ? What about surfers ? There's too many of us and the lineup is not our natural habitat, so ? Above all you say the method used to kill them is a LITTLE BIT severe ? But it's okay because it's economically safe !!! Or as said by your fellow countryman Damtern it's justified because "we have a constitution that allows for sustainable use of resources" (reminds me of USA with that gasland doc if anyone sees what I'm pointing at)and because "the rest of the world's resources have been historically plundered", so no worries it's okay to do the same. I don't blame you because you can't stop the massacre but at least you can stop the bullshit.
I completely agree that it is a bad idea this seal cull, I have never supported it and in fact tried to challenge it. Been arrested etc. I know all the seal biologists (Kirkman and Hofmeyer et al) and the seal killers (Weideman et al). I have been shot at by the seal killers in 1976. A lot has changed sinse those dark days but the so-called harvest still happens. Most Namibians do not get fed the truth, or refuse to beleive the truth about this shit. Some local newspapers and individuals try to take them on. Most of the money from the skins goes to a Turk living in Australia, and some politicians. I think a combined campaign like what is happening today in Namibia where the whole issue is being debated at the Ombudsmans office will hopefully end with a positively for the seals.
Anyway all this seal shit came about because some surfer chased a bunch of seals into the sea in a national park. A whole bunch of cool surfers and groupies with cameras captured the epic grinding left free of charge! Surfers like tourists are prone to spoil what they seek as they find it.
The real reason there are so many seals and the eco-system collapsing is because
we've destroyed so many of the top predators namely the GW shark. So, what really
needs to be done is saving the large sharks, not the seals. I know it's not a
popular solution to have 10+ times as many large sharks swimming under out feet
but if you people really cared about the ecosystem and not just the cute animals
you'd be rallying behind saving one of the worlds most incredible animal.
Also, it's one that grows slowly, reproduces slowly unlike seals and other mammals.
The seal issue is one thing but the uranium mining and associated industries could start to pollute this presently unpolluted coastline (more permanent damage to the environment than seal harvesting). AREVA, a French company and Rio Tinto a British company plus many Australian companies (Palladin, Bannerman, Extract etc.) plus Russian and Chinese are mining uranium also looking at mining marine phosphates. Instead of punishing the Namibian Government for murdering seals rather look at these multinationals that are making shareholders rich plus some corrupt politicians while contributing to green house gases, spreading radiation, and noxious waste to our air and ocean (using fresh water in a desert for mining! burning coal to give power to mine uranium). It is all rather sick, but wall street is under attack right now....somehow all related to our global demise...but presently being addressed by the young people of our planet.
Seals haul out the water to rest and breed on land. Seals are clobbered at Cape Cross and Atlas Bay each year. The Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources manage the marine environment and give quotas out each year! The coastline is all under protected area management....Namib Skeleton Coast National Park, the only continental country to have its entire coastline under protected area management.
THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A POLITICAL PLATFORM THOUGH! But those people using this platform to attack Namibia by trying to impact on an industry that is behind environmental protection...is not the way to go. Rather come into our country and try to change things from within rather than barking across the ocean! Spill some blood here for our seals rather than being a keyboard hero. I did not see a lot of interesting wilderness areas with the biodiversity that we have here in Africa...anywhere in Europe!
Ya. Coal is a much better option. Uranium = bad. Oh wait, not coal or uranium. Well then switch off your computer and stop using electricity. You show me how the internet can run on candle power. Goddam hippies.
^^ do you know if that is the wave in that Lost clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UomjoLUieyk) from a few years back...or is it ANOTHER crazy left in Namibia. If i was gonna guess I would say it was the inside section of the wave Corey Lopez surfed.
same spot.. doesnt work all the time and requires serious massive swell to actually break, so you might come here for 2 months and not even see it break, these guys got lucky as they had 3 back to back cold fronts hit which rarely happens.. literally once in a blue moon
If you haven't already, you should. Plug these GPS coordinates into google earth: 22*55'57.41"S 14*25'34.41"E
then click the historical imagery button... slide it back a few years and dream on!!!
Amazing waves but worth mentioning the poor seals in Namibia that the surfers in this vid share the wicked lefts with... The Namibian seal hunt that takes places each year is the biggest in the world: 80 000 + pups clubbed and skinned on these very beaches just to be used in the fashion trade. There is a growing campaign at the moment to try and get people to think twice about visiting Namibia until the hunt is stopped.. Any surfer who cares about ocean conservation should click on this... http://www.sealaction.org/campaigns/end-the-namibian-seal-hunt.
Fu*k, I'm ruined. Could this wave be one of the seven wonders of the surfing world? A serious plea to all forward thinking wave riders; especially those with power, money, and influence: Please support bathymetric and any other necessarily related studies of this place and encourage artificial reefs and wave pools to be built with the hope of emulating this beautifully roping, dredging, world-class pleasure pit.
Yeah, you've a good point. I guess I get a little bit overly excited by those incredible waves. They just bring back old memories and I feel the urge to experience long roping barrels again...It's been a while...
lmao, yeah them oysters are dangerous bra!!!.. no but seriously, they have meshed sheets attached to them underwater which the oysters cling to and grow on.
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